


Black Hat’s Promise

by Silent_So_Long



Category: Priest (2011)
Genre: Community: 31_days, Gen, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-18
Updated: 2012-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-31 09:17:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/342399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silent_So_Long/pseuds/Silent_So_Long
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Priestess comes face to face with Black Hat and is given a proposition she finds hard to resist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Hat’s Promise

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 31_days February 18 prompt: When walking on thin ice, you may as well dance

I stalked alone through walled streets, with the night pulse of the city on all sides, as I followed the trail of Black Hat. After all, he wasn’t exactly hard to track, given the litter of fallen Priests and Priestesses he’d left in his wake. Not half an hour ago, I had turned, disgusted, away from a fire, guttering flames dying back to reveal the remains of Black Hat’s latest charred victims. That sight alone, more than any other perpetrated by Black Hat, had sickened me. I’d known those Priests, had talked to two of them only the week before. They’d been scared; hell, we all were scared and Black Hat knew it. It seemed as if he held the entire world in his hands, held sway over us all and there was little, if anything, we could do to stand against him. 

Of course, I knew him before he became Black Hat. He was one of my Priest brethren, one of the best in fact. Before his reappearance as one of the strongest vampires the world had yet known, I’d thought him long since dead, lost to the vampires in the Sola Mira Hive. I’d been wrong. We’d all been wrong. Black Hat was very much alive and hell-bent in seeking revenge upon us all. I wasn’t sure if we didn’t actually deserve every last bad thing we received; after all, we’d left him there alone with the vampires in Sola Mira. None of us had tried to help him. 

I sighed and plunged down a side street, following my instincts as to where Black Hat was likely to be. My world narrowed down to the hunt, to finding that human-vampire hybrid and making the attempt to stop him. I had little doubt that I, too, would fail, yet I still had to give myself the benefit of the doubt. That was all I had left to go on. 

My boots thudded queerly against the garbage strewn asphalt, too loud in the suddenly too quiet world surrounding me. Odd prickles ruffled against my skin, teased the nape of my neck and I had the sudden feeling that I was being watched. Unseen eyes in the darkness rested upon me, and yet, when I turned, I could see nothing. 

“Damn you,” I said, to no one in particular, faceless horrors in the shadows that seemed intent upon stalking and spooking more than providing actual attack. 

I turned back and continued on my way, every sense on the alert and ready to fight if necessary. My hopes that I would find Black Hat that night were dimming rapidly. I was tiring - not a good sign in a hunt for a creature equally matched to a Priestess such as I. If I tired, then I would become fair game for the Black Hat. I didn’t want to lose to him. I was beginning to have serious doubts as to whether I would find whom I was searching for. 

As it turned out, I didn’t find Black Hat. Black Hat found me. 

~~~

I found myself pinned to the wall behind me, filthy bricks digging into the back of my leather jacket. Black Hat was pressed against me, yellow eyes close to mine, so close I could see greenish gold highlights flecking them. If his eyes weren’t so predatorial, they could be considered quite pretty, I found myself thinking, before my thoughts froze in my brain when Black Hat leant closer, nose snuffling against my neck as though he was scenting me. I had the sudden jab of fear that he was going to bite me; half of me wanted him to do it, responding to the call of one that was higher up the food chain than I, while the other half of me battled against it, screaming at me to break away and run. I found I couldn’t do it; Black Hat was barring my way, leaning into me so solidly I couldn’t even wriggle one leg. 

I could feel the harsh blast of air from his nostrils as he scented me again, sharp stinging graze of fangs against my neck before he laughed against me - a low rumbling laugh that shuddered against my skin and seemed to reach down to my boots. 

“You’re scared,” he stated, rather than asked. “That’s good. I like my victims scared.” 

“I’m not your victim,” I grated out, hoping that he didn’t detect the lie that I knew my words were. 

Black Hat leant away slightly, arm still barring me against the wall. One eyebrow raised, lost to the shadows beneath his wide-brimmed hat, and I knew then that he didn’t believe me. I didn’t believe me, either, so I agreed with him on that one. 

“I can sense a lie, darlin’,” he huffed out, clearly not amused at my attempt at covering up my true feelings. “I have killed for less than that, you know.” 

“I believe you,” I said, and that time I wasn’t lying. “So what’s stopping you now?” 

Black Hat laughed again, fangs flashing in the light as dimples were pushed deep into his cheeks with that one motion. He leant in, head slightly tilted as though he was imparting the greatest secret ever told. 

“You’re walking on thin ice, right now,” he told me. “But you amuse me, more than most. That‘s one of the reasons you‘re still alive.” 

“Great. Glad I’m good for something,” I said, bravado beginning to creep back a little to my words. 

I tried to shift into a more comfortable position, feeling the other’s greater weight a little stifling. It didn’t help that he was also taller than me; not a hard job when one is female and a petite one at that. 

“I want you to take a message back to the Church,” Black Hat said, considering me astutely, as though he didn’t believe that I’d really do it. “Tell them that once I’ve finished slaughtering their Priests and Priestesses, I’m coming for them, next.” 

Words caught in my throat then, refused to squeeze past the frightened ball that had wedged close to block even my breath from wheezing out. His declaration could spell the end of the world as we knew it. I couldn’t decide whether that was a good or a bad thing right then. I had a hard job remembering who I was, let alone decide anything else. 

“If you’re lucky, I might spare you, at least,” Black Hat said, eyes raking me appreciatively. “Sometimes, it gets a little lonely when you’re me. Sometimes, I need a little fun.” 

“I don’t doubt that,” I squeezed out, finding my voice long enough for that.

“You’re treading on thin ice, right now, Priestess. You may as well dance for your supper and survival,” he said. “I haven‘t finished playing with you yet.” 

And with that he was gone, weight lifting from me as though he had never been there. Only the faint scratches his fangs had made against my neck was the only physical reminder he’d ever been there at all. Internally, was a different matter. Internally, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d been marked somehow, that Black Hat had somehow staked a claim upon me without me ever knowing quite how he’d done it. 

As I walked away, my feet were heavy upon the ground, mind and body weighed down with the task that Black Hat had assigned to me. I wondered then how the Church would react to my message, and how long the current situation, as it stood, would drag on for. I found myself wishing, not for the first time, that the fight was over. If Black Hat’s promise came to pass, I wondered if it wouldn’t be better after all to be his personal plaything than continue in the same vein as I was right then. At least being owned by Black Hat, I knew what was in store for me, much as it felt like utter blasphemy to me, under the circumstances.


End file.
